David Stern threw down the gauntlet — here is our deal. It’s a 51-49 band on basketball-related income and other things the owners can live with. Come Wednesday, this offer will vanish and the next offer will be much worse. The owners are done negotiating.

Stern said it wasn’t an ultimatum, but he is wrong. That’s exactly what it is. He knows the players have only one leverage card to play in these talks. Which leaves the NBA players’ union with two realistic options:

One: Take the deal.

Two: Decertify.

Either give in to what the owners want, otherwise risk blowing up the entire season and go after them hard in the courts with decertification. I’m not the only one seeing it this way, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo does as well.

And union president Derek Fisher suggested the players are not taking Stern’s deal.

“Right now, we’ve been given the ultimatum, and right now that is not acceptable to us,” Fisher said.

Stern’s proposal — which were suggestions from the federal mediator, according to Stern — called for a 49-51 percent band of sharing on basketball-related income (which is really a 50/50 deal that can slide a little either way), along with a mini mid-level of about $2 million for teams paying the luxury tax, no sign-and-trade for taxpayers, a $1 repeater tax (teams that pay the tax multiple years) and more.

Fisher said that never really came from an official offer of the mediator. He said he never heard that offer in the room. He said the players made an offer they thought was fair.

“We’ve made moves that are extremely significant … we made an offer that was a very fair at about 51 percent …” Fisher said. “We’ve been consistent, if we move on ecomomics we need a fair system our players can live in.”

All of this is moot.

If the players are serious about fighting hardball with hardball, if they are serious about leverage, they have to at least seriously threaten decertification. It is the one thing that scared the owners enough that they filed a pre-emptive lawsuit trying to block decertification.

It would take a petition with 30 percent of the NBA’s players, about 130 guys, to start the process of decertification. Then there would be a 45-day period before the petition would be voted on (if the National Labor Relations Board doesn’t delay that vote). In that time, the threat of decertification might provide leverage that would get the union a better deal. Maybe. If you think Stern will back down. But it doesn’t feel like it because the hardline owners will not let him. If no deal, the players would need the vote of 230 players to blow up the union completely. Then the players could sue the owners on anti-trust grounds

If you put it to a vote of the entire players’ union right now, they likely would take Stern’s deal. He is counting on that, he is counting on the pressure working. Union leadership feels they have given everything they can, coming down from 57 percent of BRI to 51 percent in their latest offer. But they feel the owners are not meeting them halfway on system issues (such as the luxury tax and exceptions to it). They feel the owners are being unfair. Which is true, but moot.

Right now, union leadership is not taking Stern’s deal. And if not, decertification of the union looks more like a viable option for the players. The threat of it could force the owners to the table. Or, it could destroy the entire season. It’s a risk.

Players putting their bodies on the line for 82 games”?? For a mere couple of million a year, hahhaha. Imagine people doing jobs for $15 dolars an hour doing construction putting their lives in danger, funny aint it…